The Dangerous Disadvantage
by PlainJaneDoe
Summary: Sherlock Holmes is a good man. A great man. But nobody will ever know.  S2 Spoilers


It's a painful and unimaginable agglomeration of emotion. It's unfamiliar, unfathomable and undeniably present, heavy in his chest. It leaves a bitter taste under his tongue and an ache in his throat. Feeling. It's what's known as _feeling _and he had no idea it would hurt to feel. To feel this much.

Hurt. A sea of it, an ocean, a pacific, a world of it wishing and washing down a fragile drain of self-reliance brutally shattered along with the barriers that have guarded his heart for the entirety of his life.

Sherlock Holmes has never had to rely on anyone but himself.

Sherlock Holmes has never _needed _to rely on anyone but himself.

Sherlock Holmes has never cried.

Sherlock Holmes has never been in love.

Sherlock Holmes has never felt loss, regret, envy, jealousy, but right now he's green. It's bursting out of him silently and it's agony, pure, white agony. He's a disgustingly pale, sickly rainbow. Green with envy, red with rage and the darkest of dark blues for the sadness in his heart as he considers John from atop his concrete tower.

Sherlock Holmes has never made a selfless decision.

Sherlock Holmes has never acted out of love.

Love is a dangerous disadvantage.

To feel and to be felt, to want and be wanted, to love and be loved is something all too unfamiliar to cold ivory skin and clinical brains that seek out the calculation and logic in everything. That was until John. Until John Watson. Staring up at him with crystalline, misted eyes that seemed to scream out his undying loyalty, growing impossibly louder with every passing second. It's ringing in his ears, now, John's emotion. John's loyalty. John's dedication, commitment, honesty, faith, belief. John's love. His mouth a brittle line of contempt and sheer fear as he considers his friend atop his tower, teetering over the edge of oblivion for a reason that he may never know.

Sherlock Holmes lies.

Sherlock Holmes acts but his facade breaks. This facade is all too real. All too painful. All too horrible, sickening, the muscles in his stomach are twisting and turning and aching and for the first time in his life his brain is making it happen, making him feel, making the sting behind his eyes overwhelm his defenses as tears stain pale face, darken dark scarf. He knows this will break John. Break his heart. Rouse his psychosomatic limp. Send him back to his therapist. But a limping, therapy addled John Watson is better than no John Watson at all. At least this way he could live. He could be. He could carry on. His emotions, his passion, his energy, his grace, his everything. None of it wasted in the ground.

Once upon a time, Sherlock Holmes would rather them both die right here, right now. Anything other than spend his last moments on earth with the thought in his mind that one day, John Watson could fall in love with someone else. Someone else that wasn't him. Being forced to spend his last moments spent in an agony that wasn't the least bit physical, but still crippling. Soul destroying. Selfish.

Sherlock Holmes is a good man. A great man. But nobody will ever know.

Sherlock Holmes jumps.

John Watson is the last thing Sherlock Holmes see before he collides with solid pavement.

The look of terror and unimaginable loss on his face should be heartbreaking. Distantly it is, but it's also soothing. It's soothing because it's real. It's real and he saw it and John Watson is alive and that's all that matters.

John Watson thinks Sherlock Holmes is dead.

John Watson is emotionally crippled, emotionally drained, emotionally damaged.

John Watson is lost and afraid because he has no one again. He had it all and it all died. Died in a pool of crimson on a pavement. A most unfitting demise for a most unfitting man. The most perfect and unique and infuriating unfitting man John Watson had ever known and ever will know.

John Watson.

John Watson.

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

Partners in crime. Partners of Crime. Colleagues. Friends. Partners.

Sherlock Holmes. Deceased?

_To be continued..._


End file.
